JOINT STATEMENT: New Analysis Highlights Urgent Need for Health Care Price Transparency
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Rhonda Craig Williams
[email protected]
(202) 868-1133
WASHINGTON, DC, October 30, 2024 – Today, we, the Alliance for Fair Health Pricing, released a new report, “The Price Isn’t Right: Policy Options to Strengthen Health Care Price Transparency,” an analysis that highlights the fundamental lack of health care price transparency in the United States and its relationship to the health care affordability crisis.
Price transparency is the cornerstone of an accessible, affordable health care system. Consumers have a right to know what their financial obligation will be for health care services before they receive care. Yet they are often left in the dark about the actual out-of-pocket costs they will incur for procedures, services, and medications and face wildly different (and often irrational) prices for the same services depending on the provider they see.
Without greater price transparency that enables oversight of the pricing practices of large hospital monopolies, consumers will be left vulnerable to price gouging, employers will continue to struggle with high health care costs that stifle their ability to grow, and physicians won’t have the tools they need to help their patients make informed decisions.
AFFHP strongly supports improving price transparency to lower costs. By equipping policymakers, researchers, and purchasers with comprehensive data on where the most excessive and irrational prices occur, we can develop and adopt appropriate solutions to address high health care spending and improve patient care.
This legislative year, Congress has an opportunity to pass policies that would help strengthen price transparency, which includes codifying the current price transparency rules and expanding transparency to ownership and site-of-service billing. These are critical steps to shed light on the prices being charged for care and begin to address the rising health care costs that continue to burden families and cripple businesses. The time to act is now.
For more information about the Alliance for Fair Health Pricing, visit https://allianceforfairhealthpricing.org.